Conway shook his head, in puzzlement rather than negation, and said, “Well done, Lieutenant; at least that will give us time to think. But how can a case that began as a simple vehicular casualty with suspected brain injuries turn suddenly into something that, without the patient being aware of what it’s doing, is sucking out the higher levels of intelligence and sensitivity from the people around it like some kind of mental black hole? This doesn’t make sense.”
“With respect, sir,” said Braithwaite, “what was the exact nature of its injuries?”
“Apart from minor scorching of the body surface, which was healing well before it was admitted,” said Conway, apparently taking no offense at a mere lieutenant daring to question a senior diagnostician. “I couldn’t find anything serious enough to treat. The problem was an impairment of its telepathic faculty, which we couldn’t cure, accompanied by a major psychological component to the case which we passed to Psychology to see if you people could help.”
“Then the condition may have been present before Tunneckis arrived here,” said Braithwaite, still saying all the things O’Mara was too tired to say, “and you just inherited the problem without knowing it was there.”
“A comforting thought,” said Conway, dividing his attention between them, “but as the physician-in-charge I’m looking for answers, not excuses for my negative behavior. First I’m going to contact the Monitor base on Kerm for more details on Tunneckis’s accident, and to find out if anything like this has ever happened there in the past and what, if anything, the Kermi were able to do about it. Even with a triple-A medical-emergency coding, that will take several hours. In the meantime I’ll talk to Prilicla and the medical and engineering teams to get a detailed assessment of the extent of this non-medical contagion and its rate of progression, then call a meeting with the senior staff concerned for this time tomorrow in the administrator’s conference room. That will impress them with the importance we’re placing on this job. Sorry for making free with your offices, sir, but as you know, in an emergency of this kind it is the medic in charge who has the rank.”
He smiled faintly and went on, “I wouldn’t presume to give you an order, Administrator O’Mara, but my present medical advice is to stop working and even thinking and catch up on your sleep while you can. For the next few days we’re going to need your fresh, rested, devious, and nasty mind. Yours, too, Lieutenant. Off.”
In the event, O’Mara thought, his stale, partially rested, devious, and nasty mind had very little to contribute during the first two hectic hours of that meeting, and Braithwaite, who always looked fresh and rested, did nothing but listen attentively to the sometimes heated exchanges between the senior engineering and medical staff.
Major Okambi of Engineering reported good progress with the installation of the Kerma VBGM’s life-support and medical monitoring because it was a simple, warm-blooded oxygen-breather, but its small body mass meant that the long-stay furnishings, communicator, and facilities had to be modified to fit its tiny digits, and the fact that it could be approached only by a variety of remotely controlled devices meant that the pod’s entry lock had to be completely rebuilt. Okambi said that his people were doing their best, but the original three-day estimate had been a trifle optimistic and the pod would not be operational for at least five days.
Prilicla, its limbs trembling with the effort of saying something that would cause unpleasant emotional radiation, said, “At its present rate of propagation, friend Okambi, in five days we will have to evacuate eight levels above and below friend Tunneckis’s present location. The inconvenience to patients and staff during the transfer of treatment and catering facilities will be immense, because the levels to be vacated will also include the main dining hall. If the hospital personnel are not to risk their minds as well as their digestive processes, the food-service operation will have to be made from the ward kitchens or to the staff living quarters. Should your estimate overrun by a single day, the hospital’s entire kitchen and food-storage level would have to be evacuated as well. That would add considerably to the already serious disruption.”